Books – Page 6 – nigeladamsbookworm

Natali Simmonds

Two women, well one woman and a youth.

One mother and her daughter, at opposite ends of sexual activity scale.

The mother, Jules, in her forties, she wants to be sexually active but her husband has shown no interest in sex for a while.

The daughter, Leah, sixteen, desperate to experience sex.

Leah lies to her parents and hooks up with a young man at a music festival.

Jules resorts to an anonymous app which allows her to talk to men nearby.

At first Jules is getting cheap thrills from the site. Having uploaded a boudoir type photo of her from behind she soon starts to attract the attention.

The thrill soon changes to loathing as the majority of the responders to her post are just perverts or downright rude.

But there is one person that doesn’t seem that bad. Could she……should she???

Meanwhile Leah is on her own track to a calamity. She lied about her age when she hooked up with the cannabis smoking festival goer, and that soon comes back to bite her.

With mother and daughter both on a collision course to emotional disasters is there any way to redeem themselves.

This is a twisting plot which at times seems to telegraph what is about to happen.

But just like real life, when bad decisions are made, things become anything but predictable.

I enjoyed the plot.

I enjoyed the characters.

At times I’ve criticised books for being too graphic, or using gratuitous sex or violence, this is definitely not the case in this book.

The scenes are well written, and where the sixteen year old is concerned it’s very empathetic.

This book treads a sensitive line but never oversteps the mark.

A good read.

Pages: 368. Publisher: Bookouture. Publishing date: 14th August 2024

Southern Man. Greg Iles

The one word I would use for this book is “Epic”

Epic in size, at just short of 1000 pages.

An epic story that draws to an end and epic series.

And ultimately the story takes place over a short time in which some epic events take place.

That is when another word comes to mind “Prophecy”

This story is based now. But could be based just before any American Presidential nomination and election cycle, and it’s very realistic.

It looks at how one man’s manipulation of events, to help him make a third party run for President, could lead the Deep South to civil war.

Set in a small city in around the Mississippi, Louisiana area it looks at the deep seated beliefs of some people. The fact that a significant minority of the white population still look down on the Black people. People who are descended from slaves, people who still feel the effects of being considered a lower demographic.

Bobby White wants to have a run at being President, and he has enough supporters to get on the docket.

But what he really needs is to become Nationally known, and to do that he needs to be seen as some type of hero.

And what better way to do that than to stop another race war, or become the piece maker over another Rodney King type incident.

But to become that piece maker, to become that hero, there needs to be some type of situation for him to pacify.

So when a group of cops over react to a situation at a music festival, and shot before they think, leading to dozens of black revellers being killed, Bobby seizes his opportunity.

Set about 15 years after the Natchez Burning the story finds Penn Cage in ill health, but nobody knows just how ill he is.

However he was visiting the festival and witnessed the shooting and one mans attempts at keeping the piece.

As the situation starts to snowball, with some tit-for-tat attacks, Cage starts to suspect not everything is as it seems.

Some large houses are set alight, houses built on slavery and the cotton industry, ideal targets for retaliation against the white community.

But isn’t it a bit too obvious.

Old money is also in play. The Poker Club is a group families with old money, and a couple with new money earned from “legal” modern enterprises. They see an opportunity to gain even more power.

As is typical in America there are multiple law enforcement agencies, State and City, that sit on either side of the racial divide, that have conflicting interests in maintaining, or not, the piece.

This is a story of power, the lust for it, and the how far some people will go to get it.

It’s about how quickly a situation can spiral out of control.

And it’s about people trying to swim against a tide to put things right.

Most of all it’s about the deep seated beliefs and feelings that some people still labour under in the Deep South of the United States.

I’ve mentioned this book takes place 15 years after Natchez Burning. It is, in fact, the final book in a series of seven which have Penn Cage, and his family, as the main characters.

Do you need to read the other books first?

Yes, and in the right order. I’ve listed them below.

This is Iles at his best. I’ve described his writing as Grisham without filters, well this is Grisham without filters and on steroids.

The best thing about this though, is the fact that it could be a prophetic. This story is scarcely close to reality.

It is no stretch of the imagination to conceive that something like this could happen.

Without a doubt Iles is my favourite American author.

This book, and this series is not for the faint hearted. It’s not for people who are easily offended. It’s definitely not for people who are liable to be offended by WOKE triggering subjects.

It is gritty and hard hitting.

However nothing is gratuitous. It’s is all in perspective. It is very very compulsive.

Here’s the list of the rest of the series.

The Quiet Game
The Turning Angel
The Devils Punchbowl
The Death Factory ( novella)
Natchez Burning
The Bone Tree
Mississippi Blood
Southern Man

Pages: 977. Publisher: Hemlock Press Audiobook: 45 hours 43 minutes. Narrated by Scott Brick

Áróra Investigation Series

Lilja Sigurdardóttir

I’ve spent the last two weeks reading the first three books in this series, back-back.

Set in Iceland with a main protagonist who is half British, half Icelandic, the story in each book is brilliant, as is the running story which continues in the background of the second two, having being the main story in the first.

Áróra is a financial private investigator who specialises in identifying where people hide money, whether it’s for a messy divorce, or a corporate crime. Her favourite outcome to each case is to take her commission in cash and roll around in it, on her bed.

Cold as Hell

When her sister goes missing in Iceland her mother insists she goes to find her. Explaining to her mother that she is not that type of investigator hold no grounds with her mom, so she catches a FI light to meet a “relative” who is a Police Officer who has volunteered to help.

The Officer, Daniel, is only a distant relative, and that is by a marriage that has long ended in divorce, but they click, and start the hunt for her sister.

They start with the boyfriend. is an abusive bully who has beaten Ísafold on multiple occasions, but she keeps returning. Suspected of not only taking, but also dealing drugs Björn is the obvious suspect, but proving it is going to be difficult.

They are not the only one that has concerns about Björn and his treatment of Ísafold. And he is out for revenge, but does this help or hinder Áróra and Daniel’s investigation

It’s no spoiler to say that Ísafold is never found, and it’s Áróra’s hunt for her that continues through the other two books.

Red as Blood

Áróra is still on the island looking for her sister when an accountant she works for contacts her to tell her he needs help with a client in Iceland.

Entrepreneur Flosi has returned home to find his wife had been kidnapped. Told not to inform the police, but to arrange for a 2 million euro ransom to be paid in cash he has contacted his accountant in England.

The accountant wants Áróra to act as liaison and to fly to the U.K. to courier the cash.

Inevitably the police do get involved and it’s Daniel’s team lead the investigation.

Áróra however finds links to Russian mafia in Flosi’s businesses, he’s not the innocent entrepreneur, and the kidnapping isn’t all that it seems.

White as Snow

The story centres on people smuggling. When a container is found abandoned in Iceland with four dead bodies inside an investigation is launched.

There is one survivor, a Nigerian woman that had been living in France. At first she doesn’t know how she ended up in the container but the book contains her backstory in some of the chapters. As this unfolds so does the investigation in Icleland.

Again the Russian Mafia seems to be at the heart of everything.

Daniel has stepped back from leading the investigation, finding it harrowing, having found the survivor, but continues in a support role.

Áróra starts to follow the money, putting herself in more danger than she appreciates.

I read these books because I read a review of the 4th book which is due out later this year. I’m glad I did but now I find myself having to wait months for the next episode in what I’ve found to be an enthralling series.

Publisher: Orenda Books. Print lengths: 309, 315 and 319 pages.

Father’s Day. Richard Madeley

As good as this book is, and it is really good, I fell I have to start this review with a warning, there are triggers in this story that may affect people who have been affected by eating disorders, self harming, and bullying.

That is part of the reason this book is so good. It’s a story of modern day society that needs telling.

For the young girl, Lucy, suffering from PTSD having witness her mother die in horrific and tragic circumstances, life is a lie.

Lucy was living the perfect life in a small village in Cornwall. On a visit to a harbour that life changes when she and her dad witness a horrific accident that leaves her mother dead.

In an attempt to get away from constant reminders they move to the quiet Cotswold town of Willersey.

Becoming more reclusive, spending lots of time in her room, wearing baggy clothing, long sleeves in the height of the summer, all indications that her father eventually picks up on to identify what she is going through.

But there’s an outside influence that her Dad, Nick, has no idea about, until it’s too late.

When a man is murderer and left displayed in the Cirencester Amphitheater, a close to retiring Detective Chief Superintendent is in charge of the investigation.

It doesn’t take much to connect the dots. The storyline is pretty much established in the first few chapters. There is no who done it, more how he did it.

And more importantly what will the outcome be.

I haven’t read any other books by Richard Madeley, I don’t know why, he just hasn’t come onto my radar as far as authors go.

It was my wife who saw Richard talking about his book on the television, and it was her who recommended it to me.

If she hadn’t I’d have never picked it up. I’m so glad she saw that TV show. My next stop is downloading his back catalogue.

Pages: 373. Publisher. Simon & Schuster. Audiobook: 8 hours 25 minutes. Narrators Jamie Parker and Juliette Burton

Guilty Mothers. Angela Marsons

The series that just keeps on giving. I have led a far from sheltered life, but Angela Marsons has found a topic to base this story on that I was blissfully unaware of, and it’s stunning.

Kim Stone and her team are called to the scene of a murder. One of the worst types of crime, a young woman has apparently murdered her mother.

With the daughter locked up the team start to dig into their family relationships.

The only thing of note is that the daughter was a Child Beauty Pageant contestant and that mom might have been a bit pushy.

When another mother of a Beauty Pageant Contestant turns up dead it can’t be a coincidence, and as Stone thought she had the killer already locked up it comes as a bit of a surprise.

And so the journey into the world of Beauty Pageant begins.

The world inhabited by the contestants, and their families, comes as a big surprise to the down-to-earth Stone. The comparison of her early life can’t be ignored.

This is book twenty in the series, that’s one hell of a milestone.

You would think that this far into a series the author would be struggling to keep the reader hooked. This book proves just how wrong that would be.

The story is compelling, who knew that Pageants were a thing in the UK.

The fact that they do, and that there are bitchy, bullying, mothers living their life vicariously through their, sometimes unwilling, and often unhappy children, makes a fantastic backdrop to a murder story.

Stone and her team are always engaging and their back stories always have me hooked.

I love these books. The series is still my favourite. Book 20. Let’s hope for books 25, 30 and who knows how many more.

Pages: 362. Publisher: Bookouture. Audiobook: 8 hours 21 minutes. Narrator: Jan Cramer

Every Contact Leaves a Trace. Jo Ward

I don’t know about Locard’s “Every Contact Leaves a Trace”, every contact with this book will certainly leave an impression, and a big one.

Jo Ward is one of the UK’s top Police Forensic Practitioners. Working in the West Midlands there is no end to the types of crime and levels of violence she has encountered.

This book is a brutally honest memoir of not only some of Jo’s landmark crimes, the ones that really sit in the front of the memory, but also on the mental and physical toll it took on her body and mind.

She starts by describing the shy, sports obsessed teenager that grew up in Halesowen, and takes the reader on a roller coaster journey of emotions of her trying to find her place.

Like most people who are good at their job, Jo is obsessively dedicated, and from before she even became a Crime Scene Investigator she ensured that she was ready for the job. let’s face it not everybody would visit a morgue and watch a Post Mortem just to make sure they could handle being around dead bodies.

Once in post she describes her journey via the incidents she remembers. For those of us living in the West Midlands most of them will trigger a memory. For those outside the area there are some that made national news., all of them are intriguing.

All of them are described in a deep manner, no holds are barred. The narrative takes the reader straight to the scene and makes it easy to picture.

The uniqueness of this book is that we also go inside Jo’s mind. Other books have looked at the thought process the Investigator goes through, but this book goes one step further.

That is where the brutal honesty comes in. This is where she looks at the psychological effect that the incidents are having on her.

It doesn’t end there.

Carrying on with the “no filters” honesty she looks at how the build up, and gradual over exposure to some of the most horrific incidents, led to her being diagnosed with PTSD. She talks about the incident which was the straw that broke the camels back.

She talks about how she deals with it, and is still dealing with it.

The impact her work has had on her family is covered it’s equal honesty.

She also looks at the way the investigation of crime is changing. The cutting back of officers, and forensic teams has led to an even deeper exposure. Less personnel covering more of the worst incidents.

The pressure of keeping up with all of the advances in forensic science.

Most cases that reach the court see a big reliance on the Forensic evidence. Jo takes us to one of these hearings and shows he pressure of being the witness under cross examination.

I was thinking as I was reading this book that it should be a book every True Crime, and Crime Fiction reader should read, but I’d go beyond that. I’d say it’s a book everybody who writes about crime should read. Whether it’s factual or fiction, if you want to know what it’s really like to be a Crime Scene Investigator you have to read this book.

More importantly, if you ever aspire to working in this field, and want to know what it’s really like, this is quite simply a must read.

Quite simply one of the best memoirs I’ve ever read.

Pages: 221. Publisher: Aurum. Audiobook length: 7 hours 18 minutes. Narrator Sarah Thom

The Confession Room. Lia Middleton

When a civilian sticks their nose into an ongoing Police Investigation it is a hinderance.

When that civilian starts to interfere in the investigation, and have an ongoing negative effect on it they become an annoyance.

When they start to withhold information they become a criminal

When that person is a recently retired Police Officer it’s inexcusable.

Or is it.

Emilia Haines is the ex cop. She’s a struggling Private Investigator. She’s also a victim.

Her sister was killed by a stalker. On the night she died she had repeatedly called Emilia who was to busy being a Police Detective to answer her calls. She knows she could have saved her.

The PTSD this brought on has seen her leave the job she loved.

The Confession Room is a website where people can anonymously make life confessions.

But when the site becomes the vehicle through which a killer targets people, before streaming their final confession and murder, things obviously take a serious turn.

Emilia has posted on the site, confessing the fact she thinks she could have saved her sister. But she’s also obsessing that some day, somebody will confess to her murder.

So when people are murdered in the Confession Room she starts nosing around the investigation.

Yes, she is the hinderance who graduates through to become criminally involved by withholding evidence. But that’s only the start.

Things get worse, much worse.

This story is a bit of a stretch. Lia Middleton lets Haines get away with too much. Not only in the fact that she wouldn’t have been able to get away with it in the real world, but also to the point of the reader losing any empathy they may have had with her.

But this isn’t a bad thing. There was no time in this book that I felt I knew what was coming.

And the ending certain wasn’t what I was expecting

That made for a really enjoyable read, full of twists and turns, and fast paced, every chapter captivated me.

Publisher: Penguin. Pages: 352. Audio Book: 9 hours 25 minutes. Narrator Rachael Stirling

The Two Deaths of Ruth Lyle

Nick Louth

When one of your favourite authors ends a great series, and you wonder what they are going to come up with next, this is the type of response you really want.

Detective Inspector Jan Talantire and her team work in a Major Investigation Team of Devon and Cornwall Police. What they face in this story is a unique and baffling crime.

Ruth Lyle was a 16 year old girl when she was killed on the alter of a church 50 years ago.

When a woman is killed in the same way, in the now converted church, on the anniversary it is the start of an investigation that will span half a century.

It’s not just the location and manner of death which are identical. The woman killed today has the same name as the original victim, the same date of birth, and her birth certificate.

As far as debuts for a new series goes this is second to none.

The crime is clever and left me intrigued up till the very last page.

Talentire is a great character. Nearly 40, newly single and struggling with trying to establish a life balance that would actually give her a chance on the dating scene.

She is driven as a detective, and doesn’t take any heed of pressures from above, or below, when she is on the right track.

The supporting characters of her team, especially the newly appointed digital expert Primrose, are going to be great to watch develop over the series.

But what really steals the show is the setting. Small town crime on the North Devon coast needs all the skills of those investigated in the big cities. Without overlapping CCTV, with sketchy mobile phone coverage, and with the infrastructure difficulties of rural policing, it is more old school than some of the stories set in the cities, and for me that makes it all the more readable.

Let’s hope this is the start of another brilliant series.

Publisher: Canelo Crime. Pages: 326. Publishing date: 2nd May 2024 Audiobook 10 hours 9 minutes narrated by Mandy Weston

Deaths Head

Michael Alexander McCarthy

I’m going to start this review with a quote from the book.

“He had been so engrossed in his grandfather’s journal that he read on into the late afternoon without stopping to eat or make himself a drink”

That s exactly what happened to me reading this book. I read, and read and read. This was as close as I’ve gotten to a one sitting read in a long time.

It transformed me back to reading one of my earliest favourite authors, Sven Hassel, and his stories of a band of German Soldiers during WWII.

No glamour, just the horrors of war. The conflict of the regular soldier carrying out orders of delusional, psychopathic, leaders and the gradual numbing of their own moral compasses until they fought as much for their own survival, as they did for the “greater cause”

So who is reading what journal.

David Strachan is a successful business man living in Singapore. He receives notice that his grandfather had passed away in Scotland, and as the next of kin he returns to oversee the clearing of the house and arrange the funeral.

What he finds is that the nice Polish Grandfather he knew was not the person he thought he was.

And Grandad has left a journal relating his early life on the Poland German border, and the fact that as Hitlers war machine was gearing up for war, he had joined the notorious SS.

The journal would have made a great standalone book on its own but wrapped up in the consequences of the effect it will have on Strachan, and what happens after he has finished the journal, this makes for a story which is a cut above.

The story contained in the journal reminded me a lot of the Sven Hassel books but also of the best war book I’ve ever read, The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer. The parallels with this book are striking, especially the traumatic psychological effects the experiences of the young soldiers have on them.

A must read.

Published by Rogue Maille Publishing. Print length 395 pages

Crow Moon. Suzy Ashley

If Hitchcock had directed a film starting Miss Marple this would have been the plot.

Set in a remote Scottish village, around the time of the crow moon, the plot is set in the current day but has at its base ancient folklore.

Martha Strangeways is a reporter who is on extended leave following the death of her young twins in a house fire. She has a teenage son from a previous relationship, and unknown to her he had a dabble in the occult with two friends, one of which is found dead in the woods with a verse from an poem written in his back.

The police carry out a major investigation but Martha, who is carrying out her own unofficial investigation, isn’t sure they are doing enough.

The Police Senior Investigator recognises the benefits of having a renowned journalist, who lives locally, on his side, and agrees to share information with her as long as she is not working as a journalist.

She isn’t, she’s investigating because she’s made the connection that the police don’t want to take seriously, and she’s worried for other teenagers, including her son.

When a girl, another of the three teenagers who dabbled in the occult goes missing Martha starts to make spurious links, and disagrees with the police when they think they know who is to blame.

The setting for this book, and the premise of the story, are dark and could have been written by James Herbert. As I’ve already said the main character of Martha could have come from the pen of Agatha Christie.

That simple formula has produced a cracking story.

As far a debut books go this is one of, if not the best, I’ve read.

Publisher: Orenda Books. Pages: 402.

Audio Book length. 10 hours 18 mins. Narrator Sarah Barron